YANKEV
(YAAKOV) ZERUBAVEL (January 14, 1886-June 2, 1967)
The adopted name of Yankev Vitkin
(Yaakov Witkin), he was born in Poltava, Ukraine, to a father who was a ritual
slaughterer, a scribe, and a gravestone inscriber. After his father’s death, he was raised by
his mother who supported the family by baking bread. He studied in religious elementary schools
and with his father. At twelve years of
age, when his father was no longer living, he was turned over to the city’s
Talmud-Torah where the subjects were taught in Russian (among the teachers
there were Mortkhe Kritshevski and Aleksandr Ziskind Rabinovitsh). At age fourteen he entered the carpenter’s
workshop by the Talmud-Torah, under the direction of S. Benski. After graduating with a certificate from an
assistant master craftsman at age eighteen, he worked in private workshops as a
carpenter and a turner, as well as a sign painter and gravestone
inscriber. At the same he devoted
himself to self-education and demonstrated an interest in political issues and
Marxism. In late 1904 he joined the
movement of the Labor Zionists, took part in the local Jewish self-defense, and
accordingly had to run away from the city.
He took part in the county meeting of Labor Zionists in Poltava in 1905
and in other political conferences at that time. He worked with Ber Borochov, with whom he
published an illegal periodical in Russian, and he ran the party
secretariat. In 1906 he moved to Vilna
and there founded the publishing house of “Der hamer” (The hammer), while also
contributing to the Labor Zionist organs: Der
proletarisher gedank (The proletarian idea) and Forverts (Forward) in Vilna (1906-1907). In 1907 he attended a party congress in
Cracow and was arrested thereafter several times, the last time (1908-1909)
spending one and one-half years in a cell in the Lukishker Prison in
Vilna. From prison he published “Brif
fun yener velt” (Letter from the other world) for Fraynd (Friend) in St. Petersburg and brought out a monthly periodical
in Yiddish entitled Der tfise-gedank
(The idea of prison). After regaining
his freedom, he published Yugend-shtime
(Voice of youth) in Vilna (1908) and the literary anthology Peysekh-blat (Passover sheet), and he wrote
a series of literary articles in Roman-tsaytung
(Fictions newspaper) in Warsaw (1907-1908).
In late 1908 he moved to Galicia, edited the party organ Der yudisher arbayter (The Jewish
laborer)—initially it had appeared in German in Vienna, and later in 1904 it
was published in Yiddish in Cracow and subsequently in Lemberg. Together with Borochov who was then living in
Vienna, he edited Dos fraye vort (The
free word), organ of the Russian Labor Zionists (published in Galicia and
illegally transported to Russia). In
1909 in Stanislavov he brought out the literary collection Yugend (Youth).
In that year of 1909, Zerubavel left
for Israel, where he served as secretary of the editorial board of the Labor
Zionist weekly Haaḥdut
(Unity) in Jerusalem; in it he wrote on political and literary matters, and
(using the pseudonym “Sagi nehor” [Blind]) he ran a series entitled “Rifrufrim”
(Superficialities). In 1912 he visited
the United States, England, and France with reports on the Land of Israel. At the start of WWI he took part in the
rescue committee, “Vaad lahatsala velaezrat hayishuv” (Committee for the rescue
and assistance to the settlement [in Israel]).
When Haaḥdut
was closed by the Turkish authorities, he brought out the collection Ben hamitsrayim (In dire straits), for
which he was sentenced by the Turkish war court to one year in the
fortress. He hid from the police at this
time, and at the end of 1915 escaped, via Crete and Greece, to the United
States where he became co-editor of Idisher
kemfer (Jewish fighter); he also took part in preparing and editing (with
Ben-Tsvi and A. Ḥashin)
the anthology Yizkor (Remembrance),
“to the memory of watchmen in the land of Israel” (New York, 1916), 128
pp. He also edited the weekly newspaper Der idisher kongres (The Jewish
congress) in New York (1915-1916), and wrote articles for: Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) and Di varhayt (The truth) in New York; and Di tsayt (The times) in London; among others. On his way to Russia after the March
Revolution in 1917, he found himself stuck in Stockholm and Copenhagen, from
where he corresponded for Hayom
(Today) in Moscow and Petrograder togblat
(Petrograd daily newspaper). He arrived
in Russia in late 1917, lived for a time in Ukraine, engaged there in
broad-based party and general community activities, served as a member of the
national council in the Ministry of Jewish Affairs, and was a member of the
provisional national assembly. He was
also in the executive bureau of the “Kultur-lige” (Culture League). He then departed for Minsk, where in 1918 he
was selected onto the Jewish community administration and contributed to the
Labor Zionist organ in Odessa, Dos naye
lebn (The new life). He went on to
visit Grodno and Bialystok where he remained until the Poles occupied the city
in 1918. From there he traveled on to
Warsaw, and over the course of eighteen years he stood at the head of the left
Labor Zionists, chaired its central committee, and edited its organ Arbater-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper),
which appeared in Warsaw (1929-1937). He
was also vice-chairman of Tsisho (Central Jewish School Organization) in Poland
and a member of the Warsaw Jewish community administration. In those years he contributed to: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in
Warsaw; and Di tsayt, Der tog (The day), and Di proletarishe shtime (The proletarian
voice) in New York; among others. He
visited America on a mission for the party and took part in the meetings of the
League for Workers in the Land of Israel in Berlin and Karlsbad. He visited Israel several times and settled
in Tel Aviv in 1935, where he founded the Yiddish-language periodical Nayvelt (New world). In 1937 he was coopted onto the Vaad Hapoel
(Zionist General Council) of Histadrut.
In the late summer of 1938 he visited Poland. In 1939 he was selected by the Zionist Congress
onto the larger and smaller action committee and later onto the Asefat Hanivḥarim (Assembly of
Representatives) in Israel. He was also
the manager of the archive of the Labor Zionists and editor of a
Hebrew-language bulletin from the archive.
In 1945 he visited survivors in the camps in Germany and Italy; for a
short time he was also in Poland. In
1946 he became a member of the Zionist Executive and ran the department for
Oriental Jews. He visited the Jewish
communities in Oriental countries.
Zerubavel also edited Yidisher arbeter-pinkes, tsu der geshikhte
fun der poyle-tsien bavegung (Jewish labor records, on the history of the
Labor Zionist movement) (Warsaw: Naye kultur, 1927), 648 pp., second edition
(1928). He co-edited (with Z. Abramovits
and Y. Peterzeyl) the series Yalkute
poale tsiyon (Labor Zionist collection), published by the Ringelblum
Institute in Tel Aviv in 1947, and (with Z. Rimun) the anthology Unzer veg in boy un kamf (Our pathway in
construction and struggle) (Tel Aviv, 1959).
In book form he published: Palestine
arbeter fond (The Palestine labor fund) (Warsaw, 1917), 20 pp., with
Shlimovitsh; Ber borokhov, zayn lebn un
shafn (Ber
Borochov, his life and work), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1926), 176 pp.; 25 yor poyale tsien velt-farband
(Twenty-five years of the Labor Zionist world union) (Chicago, 1933), 31 pp.; Poyle-tsienizm kontra palestine-tsentrizm
(Labor Zionism vs. Palestine-centrism) (Warsaw, 1934), 50 pp.; In onhoyb, artiklen-zikhroynes (In the
beginning, articles and memoirs) (Tel Aviv, 1938), 238 pp.; Barg khurbn, kapitlen poyln (Mountain of
destruction, chapters on Poland) Buenos Aires, 1946), 200 pp.; Bletlekh fun a lebn (Pages from a life)
(Tel Aviv: Perets Library, 1956), vol. 1, 414 pp., vol. 2, 458 pp.; Ale ḥaim (Burdens of a
life) (Tel Aviv, 1960), a translation of his Bletlekh fun a lebn; In teg
fun milkhome un revolutsye (In the days of war and revolution) (Tel Aviv:
Perets Publ., 1966), 357 pp.; Geshtaltn
(Images) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1967), 461 pp. In Di
goldene keyt (The golden chain) (Tel Aviv) 24 (1956), a facsimile of
Zerubavel’s letter from Lukashker Prison to Yitsḥak Ben-Tsvi and his wife, Raḥel Yaniat, from forty-eight years earlier was
published. In connection with
Zerubavel’s seventieth birthday in early 1956, articles and memoirs concerning
him were published in a variety of newspapers and magazines. Sefer
zerubavel (Zerubavel volume) was published to commemorate his seventy-fifth
birthday (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961), 464 pp. He was last serving as director of the
archive of the labor movement in Tel Aviv.
He died in Tel Aviv.
His wife, FRIDE ZERUBAVEL, née
Leselboym, was born in Warsaw, survived WWII as a refugee and described her
wanderings in the book: Na venad,
fartseykhenungen fun a pleyte (Wanderer, notes of a refugee) (Buenos Aires,
1947), 175 pp.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; D.
Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of
the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 5 (Tel Aviv, 1952), see
index; A.
Abtshuk, Etyudn un materialn tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher
literatur bavegung in FSRR (Studies and material for the history of the
Yiddish literature movement in the Soviet Union) (Kharkov, 1934), pp. 27-29; M.
Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon),
vol. 2 (Montreal, 1947), p. 166, and vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), p. 476; Dr. Y. Tenenboym, Galitsye
mayn alte heym (Galicia, my old home) (Buenos Aires, 1952), see index; D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), A litvak in poyln (A Lithuanian in Poland) (New
York, 1955), see index; L. Shpizman, in Geshikhte fun der tsienistisher arbeter-bavegung fun tsofn-amerike
(History of the Zionist labor movement in North America) (New York, 1955), see
index; Sh. Belkin, Di poyle tsien
bavegung in kanade (The Labor Zionist movement in Canada) (Montreal, 1956),
see index; M. Erem, in Tsukunft
(Future) (December 1956); Y. Ayzenberg, in Haboker
(Tel Aviv) (December 27, 1957); Sh. D. Zinger, in Undzer veg (New York) (May 1959).
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 269.]
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